Kavya : Letter and Words Recognition

Kavya started to identify upper case letters when she was around 2 and then couple of months later she got the hang of lower case letters too. Although sometimes she gets confused between some of the letters like 'b and d', 'l and I', 'M and W', 'n and h' , etc even today.

Gradually, she started to recognize words without actually knowing how to read. I guess they see them as images. For example she could recognize the word "Google".

Recently, an interesting incident happened. There is a boy named "Om" in Kavya's class. Each kid has a cubie in their class with their name written on it. Few days back I was wearing a T-shirt that had "ibm.com" written on it. Kavya came to me and pointed at the last two letters of "ibm.com" and said that this is what is written on Om's cubie :). Gaurav and I were so surprised (and happy too) to learn how she could recognize Om.

I then came to know that she can recognize the written names of all her classmates. I took her ToysRUs few days later and showed her some custom water bottles that had some names written on it and she could identify ("read") all the names that were the names of boy/girl in her class.

It is really interesting and amazing to know how these kids learn things from their surrounding.

Kavya : It's the computer age

In today's age of computers, kids are learning to type before they learn to write. Kavya is no different. She can read/identify letters, but cannot write yet. But she loves to type on the computer. We would open up a notepad on our laptop and she will write her full name or just any garbage. In fact, she likes typing so much that every time she sees me or Gaurav with a computer, she would come running and demand to allow her to write her name.

About a month back, Kavya's use of a computer was limited to writing her name and typing some random letters. But then our good friend, Pooja, suggested a very good website for pre-school age kids (www.starfall.com). The website is very interactive and teaches the basics in a very fun and entertaining way. So, we introduced that to Kavya sometime in January 2009. Since the website is interactive, it requires good use of mouse and Kavya didn't really know how to operate a mouse. So, we did all the maneuvering for her and helped her navigate the site. She enjoyed it. We tried to teach her how to use the mouse couple of times when navigating that website, but she found it frustrating.

Meanwhile, interestingly enough, she got the hang of working with the mouse at her school. At her school, parents are required to check-in and check-out their kids using a computer everyday. So, when I dropped off/picked up Kavya, she insisted that she does the check-in/check-out process. In less than 3 days, she had good control of using the mouse.

Now that she could work with the mouse, she was comfortable navigating the starfall website herself without any help. Browsing the starfall site is now her favorite pass time. As soon as she comes home, she starts the computer and gets busy with the site. Often days, she does not want to get up for dinner or sleep time because she is busy with the site.

In a way, I am happy that she is learning good stuff using the computer and it seems to be much better than watching TV.. It also gives me some time to get some house work done while she is busy with the computer.. However, the downside is that she remains occupied with it even when we have some friends over - so it kind of interferes with her social life.. So, the key is to set rules and limits for everything.

Ishaan : 1 month old

Kavya : Innocence and Curiosity leads to comedy

Kavya had known but never really understood that she was going to have a baby brother. She basically did not understand the differences between a boy and a girl, although she could correctly identify who was a boy and who was a girl.

On January 14th, we came home with Ishaan. That day was the first time Kavya was seeing her little brother since we could not take her to the hospital due to cough and cold. She was very excited. She was eager to play with him and hold him in her lap.

Sometime later, we had to change Ishaan's diaper. So, we asked Kavya to get a new diaper and she went running to get a diaper. Gaurav removed the soiled diaper and put the new diaper under Ishaan while Kavya was carefully observing what daddy was doing. After a while, she got curious and pointed at Ishaan's penis and asked "Aa birdie jevu shu che?" (What is that birdie-like thing"?). We all burst out in laugher at her innocence and curiosity and most of all how she expressed her curiousity :)

Ishaan's first week into this world

How I entered the world of blogging ?

I have never kept diaries or notes of interesting incidents or trips in my life. However, after having kids, I felt it was important to capture some of the incidents that you can read later or share with friends and families.

The traditional way of maintaining a nice little diary was one option, however, it is easy to miss logging into the physical diary due to accessibility reasons or may be even misplace it. So, I thought of using the blogs as a means to save some of the fond memories.

I first started to blog using my dear daughter's blog as if I was Kavya, but then it was difficult to express my own reactions since I was writing as Kavya. Also, then I had Ishaan - and so I decided to use my own blog to capture both of their memories and also express some of my thoughts and concerns as I explore the world of motherhood.